My MacBook, First Impressions

I’ve been an owner of a MacBook for over a month now and here is my review.

HARDWARE & DESIGN

It would be difficult for anybody to say that since the first IPod, Apple hardware hasn’t been some of the most beautiful & elegant. The MacBook is no different with its rounded corners, slim design, wafer thin construction & the much-needed illuminated Apple logo on the lid.

Still what put the MacBook in a league of its own in my eyes is the hardware it ships with standard. Everything from DVD burner, wireless, Bluetooth and built in web cam come as standard.
Have a look at http://www.apple.com/uk/macbook/specs.html

MAC OS X

Having nearly no exposure to the Apple operating system I picked up the fundamentals very quickly. The OS is clean, straightforward and uncluttered. It took a while to get used to one file menu for all and a single mouse button but now in some respects I prefer it.

I know another .NET developer who upon returning home at night prefers to use MacOS. I don’t want to start the OS debate here, in my opinion in comes down simply to using something different.

DUAL BOOTING

One of the main things that caught my eye is the ability to dual boot with Windows. I wanted something that I could take to show clients development websites and a machine I could use whilst on the train to code .NET. I have windows installed, it runs on it’s own partition, looks after itself and works very well. To boot Windows I simply hold down the ALT key during boot and select Windows.

PROCESSOR
2GHz Intel Core Duo

The dual-core Intel CPU is blisteringly fast. In spite of the fact that the 1024MB of RAM is being shared with the video card, this little laptop screams. For example Photo Booth is a little application that lets you use the built-in camera to take pictures of yourself and apply various warps, distortions, and special effects. Here is where you can really see the speed of this machine: it previews nine of the available special effects in near real time (I notice a quarter- to half-second lag between when you move and when all the previews show the move). Applications launch with amazing speed and the system itself boots really fast.

SCREEN
13.4-inch Glossy

I was really sceptical about having a smaller, glossy screen after working with my 15-inch matte-finish IBM notebook for the last 2 years. What about glare? What about size? Well, glare has not been a problem indoors but outdoors under direct sunlight the screen is nearly unusable.

In terms of size I discovered that I’m not losing as much as I thought. The 13.4-inch screen has a 1280×800 resolution. The 15-inch screen on my notebook is 1280×854. By telling the dock to auto hide I reclaimed more than 54 pixels, so I have a little more real estate (pixel-wise) than before. Also, this screen is much crisper and brighter than the notebook screen.

NIGGLES

Along with the MacBook itself, I purchased a Mighty Mouse. The little scroll ball, which allows for vertical and horizontal scrolling, is one of those things that you immediately “get”. It’s a great innovation. However, the MacBook has its USB ports located halfway to the front of the left side of laptop. If you are right-handed, this means the mouse cable must go all the way around laptop, leaving you a little short on cord to be really comfortable. Either the mouse cable needs another 4 inches of length or Apple should place a USB plug where it would be more accessible.

Another minor complaint is that the MacBook has a Mini-DVI connector rather than VGA. That’s okay, but they don’t include a DVI-to-VGA cable, so you have to buy it separately for £10 if you want to connect to a projector or separate monitor. Also I would need a separate adapter to convert Mini-DVI to S-Video to plug into my TV. Not a big issue? Well the MacBook comes preinstalled with an application called Front Row, a media centre application, great but I can’t plug it into my TV

SUMMARY

The MacBook is a well-built, high-performance machine that’s a sheer pleasure to use. It has a few minor design flaws, but is a great little machine. I think the 2.0 GHz white MacBook is the sweet spot in Apple’s current line-up for features, performance, and price. Upgrade the RAM to 1GB to get the most from it. I’m looking forward to OS 10.6 that will most likely bring Windows applications to the Mac without the need for dual booting.